“Oh, to be a fly on the wall at Sony Corp.’s Tokyo headquarters these days,” William Pesek blogs for Asbury Park Press. “After 2 1/2 years with Howard Stringer as the firm’s first foreign boss, Sony is now worth about a third of its market value at the start of the decade.”
“Adding insult to injury, Apple Inc. continues to hold the spotlight. It really is one of the great business stories of the past 50 years. Sony, the inventor of the Walkman, ceded its leadership in portable music players to Apple’s iPod and continues to lose ground,” Pesek writes. “It really makes you wonder why Apple Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs doesn’t just buy Sony.”
“Apple’s owning Sony makes sense on many levels, though. Imagine the merger of two companies that boast many of the world’s top design experts. Imagine how our living rooms might look, how we might communicate, how we might work, and how we might view what’s possible in 10 years if Sony, which is strong on hardware, and Apple, which excels in software, got together,” Pesek writes.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple’s stronger on hardware than Sony right now. Sony cannot match the MacBook Air or the iPhone, iPod touch, or even the iPod classic and iPod nano. Sony used to be the miniaturization champion. Not anymore. Apple owns that crown now. Buying Sony for hardware prowess when Apple can already do better makes no sense.
Pesek continues, “Sony needs to restore the ‘cool factor’ it once had and Apple now owns. Apple needs Sony’s content — movies, music — to sell to its iPod and Apple TV enthusiasts. Why negotiate deals with record labels and film studios when you can own them?”
MacDailyNews Take: Now, Pesek’s making some sense. If Apple had Sony’s content, the other labels and majors would be loath to pull out of iTunes not only due to revenue losses (iTunes Store dominates the market), but also because Apple could retaliate and pull their valuable content from competitors’ outfits, too.
Pesek continues, “Apple probably wouldn’t mind controlling the Blu-Ray technology that analysts say offers lucrative revenue streams. Sony would give Apple the game franchise it lacks… And don’t forget Sony’s impressive stable of patents.”
“Of course, Jobs may have little interest in owning a company with so many fleas. Sony’s bureaucracy, scale and ingrained corporate culture could be a huge distraction for Apple, which has been successful offering a small number of products it makes very, very well. Also, Apple already is looking beyond today to tomorrow. Sony is more about today,” Pesek writes. “Some Sony product lines could be sold to help Apple pay for its acquisition. Yet how much debt would Apple be willing to take on to finance it? And given Sony’s baggage, an argument can be made that Nintendo Co. would be a better fit for Apple.”
More in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Marc” for the heads up.]
I’m surprised MS hasn’t tried to buy Sony. They would also want the music and movie content as well as the video game business.
As original an opinion as the guy who says “Hey, I posted the first comment.”
P.S. – Hey, First Post!!!!
Dang…Ampar beat me to it.
(Hey, Second Post!!!!)
Most mergers end up being bad for both parties, but lucrative for the senior managers involved. Why would Steve Jobs, who has repeatedly demonstrated that he cares little about personal enrichment, but immensely about building a personal kingdom, ever want to bring in a team of spoiled executives from some other company?
It wouldn’t go down well in Japan, if an American company bought a Japanese company.
Won’t happen – too big a headache.
Apple should stick to what they know best, and do it worldwide. What people need is more Apple store, iTunes store/movie rentals/Apple worldwide, iPhones/iPod Touch/iTablet + SDK worldwide!!!! And perhaps an All-in-one iMac Mini for $700 with lower specs…
This is where they should go. The rest is a waste of time for them.
” . . . but lucrative for the senior managers involved.”
It’s also terrific for teams of lawyers. Many of them have to be fitted with muzzles and choke collars to prevent them from seriously injuring someone.
Combine motion/gesture based input devices from Nintendo (Wii) and Apple’s take on multitouch, and you have an interesting starting point for next generation products.
It would be like Toyota buying Ford.
Toyota as better hardware, better engineering, better design and a non-union, highly motivated workforce. Why take on Ford’s problems? Problems that are driving Ford towards the bankruptcy cliff. It would be sheer folly for Toyota to make that mistake. Their management is too smart to make that mistake. Besides, they already turned down GM. What makes Ford better than GM?
Similarly Apple is not going to take on Sony’s problems with no upside.
because…when you do this, you also buy their problems too!
“Why take on Ford’s problems?”
(hypothetically) To eliminate a competitor and dominate the market. Sometimes it isn’t really about assets and employees.
If Apple had a stake in Sony/BMG the iTMS would be regarded with even more distrust by the other big three.
Hardware side, Sony is big in living room entertainment, meaning DVD players, TV sets, and surround sound equipment. This stuff is so non-Apple that John Ives would burst a blood vessel in the first design conference with the Sony people. Sony is all about blinking lights, meters, knobs and sliders.
Computer hardware? Hey, I think we have established that MacBook/MacBookPro yank the Vaio’s pants down in every respect.
Bottom line? No way, Jose!
This idea, only makes sense from a content point of view for Apple. Otherwise, it’s stupid.
“Imagine the merger of two companies that boast many of the world’s top design experts. “
Apple seems to be doing just fine in the design business without Sony. Sony does have decent designs though.
What Apple should do, is consider designing for other US companies, in areas where maybe Apple doesn’t already have a market. That would be kinda cool.
This would do nothing more than dilute Apple’s best and brightest talent.
Al!
Excellent comparison!
Here come the Toyota bashers!!!
tr
Mr. S. Jobs has a better job with keeping Apple fresh instaid of buying a huge but rusty whatever concern.
Well, if I was analyzing it – and I’m not – I’d say there’s an awful lot of people that would love to be the one to guess successfully what Apple is going to do next.
In the last 10 years it’s been nothing but good.
A smart analyst – as rare as carrier pigeons – might suggest to Apple, “Keep doing what you’re doing. It works.”
Bad idea. Anything Sony can do, Apple is already doing better.
It would be nice to see Apple emulate Giugiaro. This is an Italian company that originated in the world of car designs but lent their skills to designing some pretty neat household products in the ’80s and ’90s. They turned out some beautiful dstuff and Apple could definately do the same.
What a horrible idea!
Sony is a can of worms. An administrative nightmare. If Apple liked some aspect of Sony, it may be able to buy that section of Sony’s business, but it would still be a bad idea.
At present, Sony has only 3 things going for it:
1- Content (movies and music)
2- Games, including the blu-ray platform
3- HDTV LCDs
As for the first: Apple should NEVER own the content. As soon as it does, it will enter the realm of monopoly like never before, and will definitely lose the support of all other content owners.
As for the second: There is no advantage in being the “leader” on blu ray, and being one of the players is just as good. Gaming is another issue all together. It would seem to me that Nintendo would be a better purchace option than the PS3 division of Sony, simply because it technological potential appears to be much greater, and the innovation involved suits Apple’s ethos.
As for the third: There has been much talk about Apple entering the HDTV business. Apple must have been working for a while now on updating their Cinema Displays. But the commercial TV business is so extremely competitive, and the LCD sector has been struggling so much to catch up to Plasma technology, that it would not seem worth the headache. Most computer vendors make their own LCD displays, and don’t expect to make a lot of money on them. That would probably continue to be Apple’s position. Now, if you ask me, I would like to see Apple produce TV sets/Displays that are greater than 40″ and come complete with all the bells and whistles, but I just don’t think Apple will do that (unless they buy a company like Elgato).
On top of all this, such a huge corporate merger would actually “dilute” Apple. I don’t think any Apple fan would like that.
My wishlist? Elgato and Nintendo. Affordable, elegant, innovative, and would fit very nicely in the Jobsian/Ivesian world.
Just my 2.5¢
Buying a sloth like Sony is not the game plan, but running them out of business to end up just being a content provider certainly is.
On every level we can compete – and beat – Sony in the hardware arena (the market spaces we choose to play in).
We win the HW, with our OS underneath, and Sony in turn must give us content if they want to live.
Apple hopefully will continue to “just say no” to such an acquisition. As some have mentioned – it would be a ‘headache’ and would take too much ‘attention’ away from Apple’s current product line and focus. Apple is doing fine. No need to try and take short-cuts that will only harm the company in the long run. Just keep your pace Apple. We want a long distance runner, not a sprinter.
Stupid stupid stupid. Especially the part that MDN says makes sense. If Apple were to own one studio, all of the others would yank their content from iTunes. Since antitrust law, at least in the U.S. and E.U., prevents Apple from monopolizing music and film content, owning Sony’s content libraries would cause a mass defection from the iTunes Store by Sony’s competitors. Buying Sony would kill Apple.
Now Nintendo? Maybe.